Saltillo: First County Seat, Named for War

Saltillo is the oldest town in Lee County, Mississippi, and it got its name from a battlefield. A merchant named James Kyle is said to have owned the land at the site and christened it Saltillo, after the Mexican city where American forces won a significant victory in eighteen forty-seven.

Before that the spot had been a Chickasaw village, and after the tribe's removal a store went up near the old chief's house in eighteen forty-five. Saltillo hosted the first meeting of the commissioners who organized Lee County in eighteen sixty-six, but Tupelo has been the county seat since the county was created. The Mobile and Ohio Railroad arrived in the eighteen fifties and moved the town to its present location. By then Saltillo had already played its role as the scrappy frontier seat of a new county finding its footing after the removal and the war.